The Commute

I live at 143rd and Broadway (I know, I know, that REALLY is Harlem. You're about the 20th person to say that to me. You don't have to tell me that, I live here. I should know. Plus, when I told you I lived in Harlem, what did you think I meant? Upper West Side? Not so much). I work at Fulton and Broadway. For those of you who don't know the layout of NYC, a.) how dare you because "The City" is the center of the world (we'll talk about this later) and b.) 143rd St and Fulton St are pretty much the opposite ends of the island, longways.

The commute isn't as bad as you might think. I do have to switch from a local to an express train, but that's just right across the platform. Including walking and elevator time, it takes me about 45 minutes to get to my desk from the time I leave my apartment.

Let me tell you, I LOVE the train. You might think this is weird. Hell, I think it's weird. The train is dirty and smelly, and people are cranky and sometimes a little bit wacko. You never have enough room for your feet so you can stand comfortably without falling when the train jerks. If you get stuck near the door, you are literally crushed in like a cow on a cattle car, with stinky comMOOters (...please don't kill me for this pun) touching you on all sides. Additionally, New Yorkers have this really weird thing about eye contact that I may never understand, but will also certainly talk about more in a future post.

But despite all these caveats (one of my associate director's favorite words, and I still don't know exactly what it means or when I'm using it correctly (but I THINK I just made a caveat for my use of the word "caveat")), I think my time on the train is great. I am, in general, a pretty high-tension person. I am constantly being pulled back and forth between two of my main characteristics: extreme stress and extreme laziness. In fact, usually the laziness causes the stress, because I have to make up for it later. However, on the train, I have to be lazy. I am forced to just chill out, because there is nothing I can do about how long it takes me to get to work. There's no cell service or internet underground (yet), and that means that just about the only things I can do down there are read, listen to music, and people-watch. It's fabulous.

Some of my favorite people-watching games:
-Every time I'm on the train, I have to pick at least one person in my car that I'd sleep with. Emphasis on the "at least." This is actually a problem sometimes, like a couple nights ago when there were only about 15 people in my C train car and the only dudes were old and gross. But we must make do with what we have.
-Watching other people people-watch is a lot of fun, and sometimes you make new friends. The other night I was sitting next to this adorable drunk (or very happy) young Indian couple who kept thinking up good songs from their past and singing them. In super cute Indian accents. With head bobbing. A guy across from me was staring at them. Then he caught my eye, and we both grinned. Boom. Insta-BFF, whom I'll never see or talk to again.
-Watching pervs check girls out can be amusing. If a girl gets on the train with a super low-cut top, instead of watching her (because, honestly, I'm not usually impressed), my eyes immediately go to the dudes around. I particularly like it when their heads actually turn to follow her, since jaded New Yorkers generally refuse to show that they are affected by public spectacle in any way.
-As any huge nerd will admit to, I love judging people by the books they're reading. If they're using a Kindle, I will judge them firstly for that, and then still try to figure out what books they're reading for additional judgment. Apparently "urban erotica" novels are a big thing right now, and I think these women are extremely ballsy for openly reading them on public trains. I keep my romance novels strictly e-book in public so no one will ever know (except now, since I've exposed myself on the internet. GREAT).

As you can see, my train time is filled with personal brain entertainment. Sometimes I'd even rather be on a train alone than with someone else who's jabbering on and distracting me from the awesome public atrocities going on around me. When I think about it, I spend more than 5 hours a week on the train, and that is kind of sad. And by sad, I mean amazing.

To come (in no particular order (is that a caveat???)):
The Work
The People
The Neighborhood